Faded Blue

Sometimes I would have soup as well, but oftentimes just two glasses of rose wine or Lagunitas beer for lunch during my break from work.  Maybe three glasses.  Or occasionally some whiskey sour.  It was the best drunk feeling I had ever experienced, leaving the dark wood and wine red walls of the bar and stepping out onto Madison Avenue in the bright summer afternoon sunshine.  I would take a short walk up and down a couple blocks of Madison or Park Avenue, enjoying the feeling of floating in the warmth, enjoying the feeling of having a secret.  And when I would return to work, nothing would ever be as bad as it had been in the morning.  I would like everyone more, or else I wouldn’t really even notice them.  I would fly through my work, coming up with new ways to make it look like I was doing a good job and I then I would do my writing and it would always be fluid and lyrical and profound.  And I would tell jokes with the receptionist and I would elate in the blind passing of time. 

When I would go home, I would I would cure the slight headache that usually developed around 4p.m. with a bottle of Sauvignon Blanc.  I would listen to music and dance by myself until it felt better to just lie back on my bed and experience the sound.  And all the while I would be delightfully, comfortably, lost in my memories.

Of course, there was the one time I bought a bottle of gin instead of wine and drank it while I talked on the phone to my mom, who was probably also drinking.  And then I texted someone who was not even my ex-boyfriend.  I said I was in love with him.  I probably said more but I don’t remember.  He responded but I didn’t read what he said; I just deleted it.  And I told myself it didn’t matter because gin drunk isn’t love.  The next day, for lunch, I had my first Bloody Mary.  Then I had my second Bloody Mary.  And then I had my third. 

A lot of things were wrong at that point.  My job was miserable.  I was miserable.  And I was alone.  I had ceased to have a boyfriend and a best friend in the span of one week’s time.  And I had been raped a year and a half earlier, and it was just starting to bother me.  Sometimes, after a bottle of wine, I would sit on my bed writing the word RAPE with a blue ink pen all over my legs.  And then I would wake up in the morning, hungover and sick at the sight of the word all over my skin.  And sometimes I couldn’t wash it off in the shower, so I would have to walk around all day with faded blue rape under my jeans.